We arrived mid afternoon and decided it would be a good idea to take the subway to our hotel. This seemed like a flawless plan until it was time to get off the subway and walk the "very short distance" to our hotel. After about 30 mins of dragging our ever increasing in weight suitcases around in a very large circle while the temperate got warmer and out clothes wetter, we decided it was time to give in and ask directions. It seemed that we have been doing laps of our hotel!
The hotel was lovely and we managed to check in with no problems. After a quick shower we headed out to have a little wander around while trying not to go and see any of the numerous sights that we had planned to do for the next 2 days. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and a coffee before it was time to meet with Don and Glenna, a couple of my parents friends who live near Washington. We had about 30 mins to kill after getting ready so we popped across the road for a quick drink and this is where we saw that there had been a massive crash on the Subway on the line we were on about 4 hours ago with a few dead and 100's injured! I guess it wouldn't be the same if we visited a country without there being some form of disaster!
The meal with Don and Glenna was lovely. They took us to a suburb of Washington called GeorgeTown where we had Italian, share stories about all our various holidays and future plans, and Don picked up the tab - result! They dropped us back at our hotel just before midnight.
The plan for the next day was to take the hopefully open subway to Union Station which is sort of like Grand Central Station but in DC. This is where we would pick up our tickets for the open top bus tour. The ticket we got was valid for 48 hours and we were delighted it was as there was so much to see and do!
I could detail every single sight we saw, but I think that would even bore me, but there were some real highlights which included Capitol Hill, The White House, The Mall, The Monument, The FBI building and The American History Museum, but there were 2 places that stood out for me, The World War II Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
The WW2 Memorial was completed in 2004 (in fact, all the historical building we saw looked like they had just been completed in the last 5 years!), and was there to show all the states that took place during the war. At either end of the monument were the two oceans - Pacific and Atlantic with a fountain in the middle. The whole thing was terrific.
Then there was Arlington National Cemetery. I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really know what this place was all about and the only reason we went there was because it was on the bus route, but I' so glad we did. This is the place where members of the Armed Forces, members of their family and pretty much anyone else connected to a war that the US has been involved in are buried. It receives 4 million visitors a year. I'm not really sure how to describe it. It's 420 acres and I could not even start to guess how may are buried here. It seems as well that any soldier that died while they were actually serving in the forces got one type of headstone and anyone else who used to be a part of the forces got a choice. This is what got me I think.
This was just one view of one area from one direction. And further more, all these headstone and lined up not just horizontally and vertically, but diagonally too. It was stunning, precise, clean and perfectly maintained. There are other nationalities here too including Korean and Japanese.
President JFK is also buried here, and is one of only 2 Presidents to have that honour. We felt like we were stalking him!
Again, I could go on abut what else is here, but if you are interested, follow this link.
That pretty much brings us to our final night in Washington where we headed back to GeorgeTown for dinner and a drink. After an OK meal we found a piano bar - winner. We got right on it despite that fact that the piano dude was awful!! We decided to go for a wander to see if we could find another bar that tickled our fancy, but being America, a lot of that bars are in hotel and restaurants, so we ended up back in the piano bar. In true style, we finished the night sat round the piano, singling very loudly and telling the guy how great he was!
Overall Washington is a great place. You get to visit all the places you see on the telly and there are some lovely areas to shop, eat and drink as well as lots of suburbs, huge parks, endless fountains and monuments. It's well worth spending 3 days here as there is loads to do!
All the pics can be found here.
One funny stories from DC. We knew that Barak Obama was in the White House when we visited it and he was conducting an interview with Good Morning America. Everytime Cazzie saw a black man she asked me "Is that him???"
Now it's off to Philadelphia!!
Lots of love
Stuoobs
xxx
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